NATALIE KING

NATALIE King (27) from Umthinzini said that if you’re in ma­tric and young, make sure you’re re­ally sure about what you want to study.

King grad­u­ated from Rhodes Univer­sity with a de­gree in en­vi­ron­men­tal sci­ence in 2008.

But the jour­ney of pur­su­ing her dream ca­reer hasn’t been smooth sail­ing. She had a six­month stint as an in­tern at the Depart­ment of En­vi­ron­men­tal Af­fairs. But that was it — it was just for six months and her con­tract wasn’t re­newed.

King looked every­where for a job and des­per­ate for a per­ma­nent po­si­tion, she took a job at a hard­ware store as a book­keeper. “I ap­plied for jobs in the pri­vate sec­tor and there was lit­tle feed­back.”

She told Weekend Wit­ness that she fre­quently came across ad­verts for posts for ac­coun­tants so she made a switch and is now study­ing to­wards a qual­i­fi­ca­tion in ac­count­ing at Unisa.